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One more thing about the WH and Capitol tours. We found the secret service guards in the White House to be very pleasant and eager to answer questions. Still strict about certain things (don't touch, don't sit down, don't take pictures), but otherwise nice.
The security folks at the Capitol were a different story. Nearly every one of them was rude and perfunctory. And when you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do, they would verbally snap at you.
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
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Quote:
Originally Posted by billl
One more thing about the WH and Capitol tours. We found the secret service guards in the White House to be very pleasant and eager to answer questions. Still strict about certain things (don't touch, don't sit down, don't take pictures), but otherwise nice.
The security folks at the Capitol were a different story. Nearly every one of them was rude and perfunctory. And when you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do, they would verbally snap at you.
Did you meet Michelle? She sometimes comes out with Bo.
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
7,668 posts, read 5,260,330 times
Reputation: 1392
Quote:
Originally Posted by billl
We found the WH tour to be one of the highlights of our trip. Yes it was short, but we were in no way "ushered out" as you claim. We were in the building for at least 30 minutes and were able to take our time. People got yelled at for touching anything or for sitting down, but other than that we weren't bothered. We were able to linger in front of the portico for as long as we wanted to take pictures.
Absolutely! We were one of only two families that were treated to a Capitol tour. We didn't have to stand in any lines (except for security) and were in a much smaller group than most everyone else. The tour guide (intern) even knew our names! It was a great experience. It ended with tickets to visit the house gallery -- the intern did not accompany us for that and we did have to stand in line for it.
We got this tour automatically with the WH tour, which we arranged through our representative's office. Both tours were a very positive experience. The only disappointment was that congress was not in session and so we didn't really see anything from the house gallery other than the room itself.
How do you get into the Capitol tour? I might do that instead.
How do you get into the Capitol tour? I might do that instead.
Capitol tour is open to the public. You can reserve tickets in advance through the Capitol visitor's center, or you can try to get tickets same-day. I'd recommend making reservations if you can.
You can also (if you live in the US) contact your representative or senator's office and request a tour. That's what we did and we found the tour to be much more personal than the standard tour. We also didn't wait in any lines except for the one to get in the house gallery.
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
7,668 posts, read 5,260,330 times
Reputation: 1392
Quote:
Originally Posted by billl
Capitol tour is open to the public. You can reserve tickets in advance through the Capitol visitor's center, or you can try to get tickets same-day. I'd recommend making reservations if you can.
You can also (if you live in the US) contact your representative or senator's office and request a tour. That's what we did and we found the tour to be much more personal than the standard tour. We also didn't wait in any lines except for the one to get in the house gallery.
keep an eye out for the little elf door, in the baseboard behind the Senate(?) chambers, it's weird, our page didn't know much about anything we came upon and had no explanation. I've searched for it on-line with no luck...but I know what I saw
It was probably because of availability. We had to request several months in advance and basically gave them an eight day window we would be in DC. They let us know two weeks beforehand what day we would be visiting.
I am upset tonight. We applied for White House tour in Aug or Sep and received confirmation last week for our tour in Nov. Today was notified we would not be allowed, this coming 3 days before the trip and right after tour was confirmed. I emailed Secret Service several times but no explanation. Did say if there was a change, I would be notified. Is this the msg one gets if tours are canceled? It didn't seem that way.
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